As a long-established business, Vaillant is proud to have a reputation for performance, quality and reliability. However, the company were experiencing inefficiencies in their warehouse inventory management operation which were leading to production delays and impacting their customer experience.

Vaillant manufacture a wide range of commercial and domestic heating solutions at their Derbyshire production facility. Within the pick process, parts were picked and counted into totes by hand, before being transferred to the assembly area where they were fitted into boilers.

The accuracy of the parts supplied to the assembly area is critical to ensure efficient production, but assemblers were continually running out of components due to short or incorrect counts. These inaccuracies resulted in unnecessary stoppages in production which not only lead to the company missing efficiency targets, but the cost of downtime, impact on lead-times and knock-on effect on inventory was proving costly and had the potential to impact delivery times.

With profitability, downtime and reputation at stake, Vaillant needed an innovative solution to help improve picking accuracy and keep a better track of their inventory. They turned to the Mobile Picking Solution (MPS200) from Avery Weigh-Tronix, which allowed them to verify pick accuracy quickly and efficiently at the point of pick.

Simple, on-screen instructions or icons are used to guide the operator through the picking process by displaying images of the item to be picked and the quantity required. This use of imagery and simple, step-by-step prompts ensure that the pick instructions are so easy to follow it delivers a minimum picking accuracy of 99.75% at the point of pick.

Since introducing the MPS200 to their pick process, Vaillant have improved count accuracy by 4% and increased count speeds by 50%, as well as virtually eliminating re-counts. By verifying pick accuracy at the point of pick, the logistics picking team are now increasingly confident in supplying the correct parts to the production line meaning there are now no stoppages due to incorrect or insufficient parts.

The MPS200 has also integrated directly with Vaillant’s warehouse management system to increase efficiency and cut the cost of inventory management. The mobile picking solution enables the Vaillant order picking team to verify inventory in real time, eliminating the costly efforts and downtime associated with inventory counts.

"We have been searching for something like the Mobile Picking Solution for the last 4 years to solve our pick accuracy problem. The MPS200 has done that and so much more"

Supply Chain Manager, Vaillant Group

The results have made a massive impact to the business’s bottom line; by improving overall production line efficiency Vaillant can improve fulfilment and shipping accuracy and enhance overall workflow productivity, protecting their service quality and reputation.